Close to Home: Hezbollah in Latin America
Hezbollah is not just a Middle Eastern threat. With vast criminal operations in the Americas, its threat is much closer to home than most Americans realize.
On April 23, Interpol issued a red notice against Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi in response to a request from Argentina. The Interpol red notice – a request for worldwide law enforcement to provisionally arrest an individual – is in response to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Argentine authorities allege that Iran’s Lebanon-based proxy, Hezbollah, carried out the attack, which killed 85 people and injured over 300, at the direction of authorities in Iran. Argentine authorities also allege that Iran and Hezbollah carried out the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29 people.
Although these cases are decades old, evidence suggests that Hezbollah has steadily expanded its operations in Latin America in the years since, operating with general impunity in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and possibly others. It maintains relationships with organized criminal syndicates, runs espionage rings out of Iranian embassies and aids in the spread of Tehran’s soft power in the region. Most importantly, Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America funds its activities in Lebanon, as well as Iran’s activities in the Middle East and beyond, to the tune of billions of dollars annually.
The 1994 attack, allegedly perpetrated by Hezbollah, remains the deadliest in Argentina’s history. Image source
Background
Hezbollah reportedly arrived in South America sometime in the late 1980s. It established itself in the tri-border area (TBA) between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Due to its many tax incentives and strategic location, the TBA is a longstanding hub for illicit activity, earning it the label of the “largest illicit economy in the Western hemisphere.” The TBA has also attracted operatives from the region’s many ethnic communities, including Lebanese, of which more than five million reside in Argentina and Brazil. Moreover, a substantial number of Lebanese Shi’a Muslims escaping their country’s civil war arrived in the TBA in the mid-1980s. In this way, Hezbollah could simultaneously benefit from the region’s lax financial oversight while infiltrating the its Arab Shi’a communities.
Hezbollah chose Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, as its base of operations due to its distinct locational advantages for smuggling and counterfeiting, which allow it to raise vast sums of cash. Current estimates claim over $18 billion worth of illicit trade—including drugs, arms, and even humans—passes between Ciudad del Este and its nearby border with Brazil annually. For Hezbollah, this hotbed of illicit activity has significantly helped further its primary goal of establishing illicit funding networks to finance its operations at home.
The TBA is a hotbed of global illicit activity. Image source
Hezbollah’s rise and organizational evolution
Hezbollah’s illicit operations in South America allowed it to raise substantial sums of cash despite being listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department in 1997. The group has since flourished into a massive international crime syndicate spanning dozens of countries, making it an invaluable partner to Iran, which must also seek alternative ways to raise funds after decades of international sanctions.
Hezbollah is heavily involved in the regional narcotics trade, including in relatively remote places such as Curacao. In 2007, US and Colombian authorities found that Hezbollah had been arranging cocaine shipments from the TBA and other parts of the region to the Middle East. In 2008, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) launched Project Cassandra to combat this trade, eventually uncovering evidence of Hezbollah drug trafficking and other activities to the tune of over $1 billion annually. According to Emanuele Ottolenghi, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Hezbollah today has built a “well-oiled, multi-billion-dollar drug trafficking machine.”
Top Hezbollah figures in Lebanon reportedly orchestrate the group’s drug trafficking operations in conjunction with pro-Iranian business families in South America. These local families also provide logistical support and invaluable conduits to local criminal syndicates, governments, and other stakeholders. For example, Hezbollah’s crime networks in Venezuela comprise several such families, such as the Saleh clan, who control local drug, arms, and other illicit networks in the coastal city of Maracaibo while liaising with the Maduro regime. Another of these Venezuelan families is the Nassereddine clan, who run an array of enterprises that include Hezbollah training centers on Margarita Island, money laundering rings, arms trafficking networks, and more. In 2022, Israeli authorities found that Hezbollah facilitated vast shipments of gold from Venezuela to Iran.
Hezbollah uses legitimate businesses to mask its regional operations. For example, it hides many of its cocaine shipments to Lebanon in regional charcoal exports, as well as companies selling beef, textiles, and more. In Lebanon, Hezbollah financiers such as Adham Tabaja control networks that provide cover for vast money laundering operations in Latin America and Africa. This multi-layered approach allows Hezbollah to avoid detection while offering plausible deniability to its operatives on the ground.
Hezbollah helps regional narcotics syndicates by providing services to gangs and helping them reach their end markets in return for a share of their revenue. In 2014, Hezbollah-linked traffickers sold arms to the Brazilian prison gang First Capital Command in exchange for protecting Lebanese-Brazilian prisoners. Hezbollah has also formed alliances with Mexican drug cartels such as Los Zetas, using them in assassination plots while laundering their money.
Although Hezbollah has primarily focused on illicit fundraising, it has at times attacked Jewish people and Israeli nationals in the region. In 2014, Peruvian counterterrorism officials apprehended a suspected Hezbollah operative who was planning attacks in Lima. More recently, there have been direct or indirect (through intermediaries hired by Iranian security forces) plots in places such as Brazil and Colombia, with the threat level also being raised intermittently in Argentina. Hezbollah has also attempted to mount attacks in North America, with some of these traced back to its South American networks.
Evidence seized from one of Hezbollah’s smuggling operations in Latin America. Image source
Counterterrorism efforts
Hezbollah’s presence in the TBA has long been on the radar of local and international authorities. For example, reports from 2002 indicate that Hezbollah operated ‘weekend training camps’ in the jungles near Foz do Iguaçú. Similarly, in 2003, US federal authorities wrote about Hezbollah and other groups’ fund-raising, drug trafficking, and money laundering in the TBA. However, these assessments seemingly fell to the wayside in the ever-evolving counterterrorism agenda of the post-9/11 era.
Inherent challenges related to local law enforcement in much of Latin America also make countering Hezbollah extremely difficult. In addition to the general lawlessness of the TBA, Hezbollah has reportedly made inroads into local high-ranking politicians and law enforcement officials. In 2014, the son of Suriname’s president admitted to accepting millions of dollars in exchange for allowing Hezbollah fighters to attack the US using his country as a base. In 2020, US authorities charged a former member of Venezuela’s national assembly with narco-terrorism, alleging he shared links with Hezbollah and Hamas.
In some cases, Hezbollah has evaded US law enforcement by benefitting from shifts in relations between Washington and Tehran. In 2017, an investigation by Politico revealed that officials at the US Justice and Treasury departments obstructed Project Cassandra by denying approval for the prosecution and arrest of Hezbollah operatives. These moves allegedly came from the Obama administration to avoid derailing its attempt at rapprochement with Iran. The Politico team claims that significant players, such as Hezbollah’s envoy to Iran, were let off the hook, even as cocaine shipments made their way into the US and the proceeds from them made it into Hezbollah’s coffers.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (left) maintains close ties with Iran, and allegedly with Hezbollah. Image source
Conclusion
Hezbollah poses a severe threat to the South American countries it is entrenched in, not least because it facilitates regional crime syndicates. The group has only grown bolder over the years, particularly following the war in Gaza, and could conduct further attacks in the region in addition to its vast illicit fundraising activities. With little coordination or intent among South American partners to stop the group, Hezbollah’s position in Latin America will likely expand in the coming years, funding even more operations in the Middle East amid rising tensions with Israel.